Models of a man: Essays in memory of Herbert A. Simon

Abstract

The integration of human decision-making theory with the structures of organizations and social systems identifies bounded rationality as the primary constraint on individual and collective action. Rather than engaging in global optimization, agents utilize satisficing strategies to navigate complex environments by searching for alternatives that meet internal aspiration levels. This procedural approach to rationality underpins a variety of fields, from the design of administrative hierarchies to the modeling of cognitive processes in psychology. Complex systems—whether social, biological, or artificial—exhibit a near-decomposable architecture that permits efficient coordination through the isolation of subsystems. Furthermore, the conceptualization of human thought as symbolic information processing allows for the formal simulation of problem-solving and scientific discovery via heuristic search. Markets and organizations act as artifacts that mitigate the cognitive limitations of participants by providing stable decision premises and institutional rules. Ultimately, a unified science of man requires reconciling the dual nature of humans as both social and rational actors, necessitating empirical models that account for limited computational capacity and the influence of organizational subgoals. – AI-generated abstract.